Truro zoning decision hinges on single vote (Fractionally Challenged City)

Cape Cod Times ^

[mnehring]

TRURO — Voters narrowly approved one of four zoning amendments late Tuesday night at the annual town meeting. But town officials were still looking at the exact vote count on that article yesterday.

In a vote of 136 to 70, voters passed a new time limit on how quickly a cottage colony, cabin colony, motel or hotel can be converted to condominiums. The new limit requires that those properties be in operation for three years before being converted to condominiums.

The idea behind the zoning amendment is to slow the pace of condominium development in Truro and preserve more affordable accommodations for tourists, according to citizens proposing the warrant article.

Currently Truro does not allow condominiums complexes to be built outright in its zoning bylaws. Instead, property owners must build a cottage colony, cabins, motel or hotel first and then covert it to condominiums through a special permit.

The exact count of the vote — 136 to 70 —had town officials hitting their calculators yesterday. The zoning measure needed a two-thirds vote to pass. A calculation by town accountant Trudy Brazil indicated that 136 votes are two-thirds of 206 total votes, said Town Clerk Cynthia Slade.

Brazil said she used the calculation of .66 multiplied by 206 to obtain the number.

But using .6666 — a more accurate version of two-thirds — the affirmative vote needed to be 137 instead of 136, according to an anonymous caller to town hall and to the Times.

Slade said that she called several of her colleagues to see how they calculate a two-thirds vote, and the answer varied widely. In Provincetown, Town Clerk Doug Johnstone uses .66. But Johnstone said he'd never had a close vote where it might matter.

A spokesman from the Secretary of State's office was not available to comment yesterday.

Slade said she will let the state Attorney General's office decide on the correct count, as part of their normal review of town meeting decisions.

A second zoning decision lifting the seasonal-use only restriction on condominiums on Truro was indefinitely postponed, with the selectmen promising to return with an improved proposal next year.

A third proposal to limit the cubic feet of residences throughout Truro was defeated. And a fourth proposal to limit the size of new cottage colony units to 450 square feet was indefinitely postponed, as well.

[mnehring]

So simple, only the government can screw it up.

[Enterprise]

206 divided by three, times 2 = 137.33333.

[Pilsner]

If the staute really says "two-thirds" of the votes cast, I would divide the total number of votes by three, then multiply that result by two.

206/3 = 68.666 (repeat as many 6's as you like). 68.666 x 2 = 137.333 (again, repeat as many 3's as you like). So the measure did not pass.

I can't say that is correct, but its what Judge Pilsner would do.

[Radix]

I would not exactly consider Truro as a “City.” It is pretty small town that has a whole lot of seashore and not much else.